courts

A judge ruled that the two parents who were charged with first-degree manslaughter in New Hartford for the death of their son will now face a grand jury. Four others have also been charged in the beatings during a so-called counseling session which a witness said lasted about 14 hours.

Twenty-five family court judges will be added statewide by the end of 2015 to help reduce a backlog of cases and streamline the family court process. It's the first major addition of judges in New York in more than three decades.

Last year, there were more than 7,200 family court petitions filed in Oswego County, resulting in nearly 3,500 cases that needed to be handled by a judge. That equates to about 20 to 40 cases each day that are handled by either the county's elected family court judge, or another county judge as needed.